Obama's Cronyism Compromises National Security

Powerline Blog ^ | December 14, 2011 | John Hinderaker

[ashukla]

For Barack Obama, governing is all a matter of payoffs: it’s the Chicago Way. The latest Obama administration scandal shows that when it is a choice between cronyism and national security, cronyism comes out on top. Investors Business Daily explains:

SolyndraGate was no isolated case of corrupt government misspending. The U.S. Navy was just forced to buy 450,000 gallons of biofuels from an Obama-connected firm at an outrageous $16 per gallon. …

Now we find the Navy partnering with the Agriculture Department to purchase hundreds of thousands of gallons of alternative biofuel in place of standard JP-5 fuel for Navy aircraft — the biggest federal purchase of biofuel ever.

It’s part of the White House’s “we can’t wait for Congress” strategy as the 2012 election year looms. But JP-5 typically costs less than $4 a gallon. If a family on a budget started filling up with $16-a-gallon gas, it might want to adopt the motto, “we can’t wait to go broke.”

A look at the lucky seller of this environmentalist version of the proverbial $600 Pentagon toilet seat indicates that the move is not just wasteful, but ethically suspect.

As J.E. Dyer noted over the weekend on the Hot Air Green Room, “a member of Obama’s presidential transition team, T. J. Glauthier, is a ‘strategic advisor’ at Solazyme, the California company that is selling a portion of the biofuel to the Navy. Glauthier worked — shock, shock — on the energy-sector portion of the 2009 stimulus bill.”

Solazyme had already gotten a nearly $22 million chunk of change out of the taxpayers thanks to the 2009 stimulus. We heard the ludicrous excuse last week from Obama Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, as quoted in the National Journal, that “we are doing this for one simple reason: It makes us better fighters” because “our use of fossil fuels is a very real threat to our national security and to the U.S. Navy ability to protect America and project power overseas.”

What about the “very real threat” to the Navy of not having enough money for the ships, fighters and ammunition it needs to protect America? President Obama’s assault on the Pentagon could scrap 60 of the Navy’s ships, including two carrier groups.

So the extra money that Obama diverts to enrich his inefficient “green energy” providers will contribute to the demise of our naval fleet. This really is an outrage. The Obama administration is all about stealing from the efficient to enrich the inefficient, as long as the inefficient are Democratic Party supporters–which, not surprisingly, they generally are. But here, Obama has carried cronyism to the point of endangering national security.

Under the thumb of the Obama corruptocracy, the Navy has announced that it will largely transition to “alternative energy.” Michael Ramirez was all over this in a matter of hours: [mod note - Ramirez is link-only]

[Recon Dad]

One hundred years ago the navy of the United States and Great Britain switched from running on coal to oil. It was done because ships could go faster and thus out maneuver their enemy, so there was a compelling reason to make the change.
With no shortage of oil on the horizon and no advantage in making a plane go faster there is no reason to switch to a syn fuel that costs 2.5 times as much as your present fuel. I would be very interested to find out the long term effects this syn fuel might have on these engines.

[Recon Dad]

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, as quoted in the National Journal, that “we are doing this for one simple reason: It makes us better fighters” because “our use of fossil fuels is a very real threat to our national security and to the U.S. Navy ability to protect America and project power overseas.”

......you just can’t say the above with a straight face.

[hal ogen]

You just have to wonder how these ass-kissing morons can sleep at night.

[Venturer]

They sleep the same way the ass-kissing Democrats in the Congress sleep.

Remember this Obama is a POS of that there is no dopubt, but he cannot do these things alone. He must have the backing of hundres of more POS politicians in the Congress. Only they have the power to stop him. Democrats will not, and Republicans seem to be oblivious to what is going on, giving him their tacit approval.

Wher are the voices crying out against these attacks by Obama and his Chicago thugocracy> Have you heard them? I haven’t.

[urbanpovertylawcenter]

we briefly tried biofuel in our tractors and dozers and went through dozens of Catapillar filters and John Deere filters before we learned the fuel was prone to growing things that clog filters even when filtered three times!

Barack (Who’s Sane) Obama probably has a pal in the filter business too.

Biofuel is a mess. Give me oil, black beautiful oil.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Black oil is my middle name...